1. “What is it like to be discovered?”

2. “The Europeans did not ‘discover’ a utopian paradise of socially harmonious organizations”.
40,000 years ?????
Original routes to Americas is debated (last 50 years)
Asia: Bering Strait
Polynesia: trade with Southern American groups
Diverse societies with diverse characteristics, languages, cultures, specializations, degrees of organization
5000 distinct Indian groups in South America

3. Population at time of Conquest is contested:
Tens of thousands of years before Columbus, the Americas had been settled.
Called “native Americans” but predate “America”
Population at time of Conquest is contested:
Range: 12 million - >100 million
implications of population extremes
Amount/extent of genocide
Extent of resource use
Food production systems
The name America was coined by Martin Waldseemüller from Americus Vespucius, the Latinized version of the name of Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512), the Italian explorer who mapped South America's east coast and the Caribbean Sea in the early 16th century. Later, Vespucci's published letters were the basis of Waldseemüller's 1507 map, which is the first usage of America. The adjective American subsequently denoted the New World.

4. Very few primary sources remain; we will look at a few:
Pinturas
Codices
Writings of Bartolomé de las Casas

5. Pinturas: illustrate tension between domination and resistance
López de Velazco was the Spanish geographer in the Americas , assigned to describe and map the Spanish territories in the Americas.
Worked for the Council of the Indies
Resulting products: Description and Demarcation of the West Indies and Geographical Accounts of the Indies (mid 16th Century)
Gave a questionnaire of 50 questions in Instruction and Memorandum
Given to all villages and centers
Question #10 asked for a pintura (map) of the place
(Of the 191 responses, 43 pinturas are housed at University of Texas at Austin)

6. Indian texts (codices) read from bottom right upward
According to Mignolo, the pinturas allowed for the movement of the center.
Pintura for the town of Chimalhuacán
The hil
Labeled “the old house of idolatrous practices”
The monastery
Footpaths
Indian texts (codices) read from bottom right upward
2 delineatd spaces facing each other; hill prominent; map is a cultural hybrid: 2 religious centers; altepeme: land was a place as well as a lving force

7. Atepetls (ethnic-based political entities) River
Amoltepec
church
Platform with 2 rulers
Atepetls (ethnic-based political entities)
River
How do you translate this into European cartographic standards/
An indigenous visual vocabulary; Amoltepec
Is a community embedded in historical,
Kinship, environmental networks.

8. Huejotzingo puebla 1591 Stone fence
Road to the city of Pueblo, footprints and hoof prints
Surrounded by milpas
Ravine
Water source
Property lines

9. Pintura of
Huaxtepeque
Aztec glyph of hill

10. Present day Hidalgo, MX
Notice:
perspectives
plants and animals
no Spanish text

11. Guamán Poma de Ayala 1200 pages; 398 illustrations
Written for the Spanish Crown to chronicle the Incan
History and the colonial experience

12. Guamán Poma’s map of the world
Looks east toward Paradise.
Cuzco at center
Divides world into 4 quadrants:
4 suyos of Incan empire;
each with Coat of Arms and 2 rulers
Divisions of High and Low
Right: nobility, dominance
Left: barbarians, hostile
Lower: amoral, lazy, corrupt, rich (Spanish are placed here)
Other quarter is extremely poor
Connects spatial distribution and social organization

13. Bartolomé de las Casas A wealthy Spaniard
Went to Cuba in 1502 and 1506 as soldier with slaves; participated in overthrow of Cuban native peoples
Changed his stance
Was ordained in New World in 1512 and preached against the genocide in the Americas
Many writings about Columbus and his voyages and behavior of Spanish and Indians
Eye-witness accounts of Spanish cruelty toward Indians

14. Codices Recorded on long strips of bark or plant fiber
Written in text by pre-Columbian professional scribes working for various deities
Maya codices (Named for cities where they ended up)
Dresden codex
Madrid codex
Paris codex
Michael Coe:
“Our knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the
whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning
and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that
posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and
Pilgrim's Progress).
Aztec codices

15. Dresden codex Most preserved of the Maya codices On bark of fig trees
78 pages
Maya had hieroglyphic text, complicated calendar, sophisticated observations of astronomy, detailed cosmology

18. Maya region 1800 B.C. – 1500 AD Written language Art Architecture
Calendar
Astronomy
One of the most densely populated and culturally sophisticated societies of its time

19. Many, many of these books in Yucatan at time of Spanish conquest
16th Century
Virtually all destroyed upon orders of Bishop Diego de Landa
"We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction."

20. Aztecs (12th Century until Spanish invasion)
Allied but ethnically different city states
Seven tribes
Controlled valley of Mexico and much of central America
Triple Alliance, dominated most of Mexico (1430 – 1521) :
Mextica of Tenochtitlan
Acolhua of Texcoco
Tepaneca of Tlacopan

22. Many Aztec codices
Some recorded before Spanish arrived; some during colonial times

23. Imperial Societies that dominated
Triple Alliance (Aztecs) (12th Century – Spanish invasion)
Maya (2000 BC – Spanish inv.; height AD)
Incas (13th Century – Spanish)
Olmec (1200 – 400 BC)
Toltec (900? AD – 13th Century
“The pre-Columbian period witnessed the passing of numerous ‘civilizations’ with complex systems of territorial-administrative functions founded upon the subordination and disintegration of other social groups within their extensive imperial territories”.

24. Pre-hispanic Economies
Food production
Immediate consumption
Short-term storage
Barter/exchange economies
Shells, feathers, obsidian, metal, coca, cacao, cotton
Sometimes elaborate (Incas)
Taxes as tribute (labor)
No capital accumulation

25. Ricci’s map